DISEASES OF SWINE AND OTHER ANIMALS. 119 



grown with weeds, were tlie most unliealtliy ; and nnder these circum- 

 stances the greatest amount of disease was observed. It is at this 

 particular season of the year that hogs are most neglected. Having been 

 turned out during the summer months to take care of themselves, while 

 the grass is green and filled with nutritious qualities, they thrive and 

 do well ; but, at the approach of the dry season, green grass gives place 

 to that which is mature and dry, in which state it is indigestible and 

 constipating. The water at this particular season fails. It is also at 

 this season that swine keep their skin clothed with mud as a i^rotection 

 against flies, seriously iaterfering with its healthy functions as auxiliary 

 to the lungs and other depurating organs of the body. This is the 

 season when the cold nights precipitate heaA^v dews, and while run- 

 ning through the grass and weeds, during the nights and early morn- 

 ing hours, the animals become wet and cold, to be dried oft' and scorched 

 in heat and dust at tlie returning noonday. Dming the nights they 

 are chilled, sending the blood from the surface to the internal organs 

 of the body, and breathe a damp, cold atmosphere; dnring the day 

 they are overcome with enervating heat, and breathe a dry atmosphere, 

 loaded with dust and dry particles of decaying vegetation. Is not this 

 an array of existing circumstances well calculated to excite catarrhal 

 affections, and are not these conditions as universally present over a 

 large area of country as the disease itself? It may be objected that the 

 disease sometimes i^revails where the conditions mentioned are wanting. 

 That it does prevail in some instances where there is no visible cause 

 for its production is true, but the instances are of rare occun-ence. As 

 before stated, it prevails again in an active and fatal form during 

 the months of February and JMarch. This is the season when bronchial 

 and lung diseases prevail among tlie human family, due to the atmos- 

 pherical changes, and exposure to the dam^) earth then in a state of 

 alternate freezing and thawing. Swine are similaiiy affected during 

 that period of the year fi'om the same cause; and being more generally 

 exposed to these causes than the human family, are more liable to such, 

 diseases in tbeir epidemic form. The principal objection to tliis rational 

 theory of the cause of the disease is that, it is found to exist at other 

 seasons of the year than those mentioned, and under circumstances 

 where almost all the conditions named are wanting. In a few instances 

 we observed it where there was no visible want of first-class care in the 

 management of the swine as to food, water, cleanliness, and shelter, and 

 when they were running on clean blue-grass pastures well shaded and 

 w^atered; but the prevalence of the disease under such circumstances 

 was exceedingly rare. It is the general opinion among farmers that the 

 disease is due to some specific poison, and is contagious in character. 

 This opinion was generally entertained by the farmers of Putnam 

 county, where the disease prevailed this season for the first time as a 

 general and widespread epidemic. Many claimed that the disease was 

 communicated by a lot of diseased swine driven through that county 

 from the county of Boone ; but many cases occurred on farms entirely 

 off the route traveled by the diseased animals, and entirely isolated 

 from public liighways, and upon which no new or strange animals had 

 been introduced by purchase or otherwise. A toll-gate keeper living 

 near the village of Bainbridge, in that county, had a few swine running 

 at large, and coming in close contact with all the animals driven over 

 the road, and still they had escaped the disease; wliile those occupying 

 inclosures by the roadside generally had it. Numerous instances were 

 reported by reliable and intelligent men, wliere the disease prevailed 

 upon one farm mth but a partition fence separating the sick animals 



